journaling

Connecting with Gidget through SoulCollage® and Oracle Cards

Posted by Barbara Techel

I recently completed a SoulCollage® card in honor and memory of Gidget. It’s an intuitive process I’ve been trained in as a facilitator and have held workshops with different themes. Something I’m giving thought to for the future and facilitating some online classes.

Every one of my dogs has a card in honor of them and what it was they brought to my life. Central to the process after collaging on a 5 x 8 card is to journal with the prompt I Am One Who. 

It’s a sacred and beautiful way to connect with our dear animal friends who are no longer with us. I find it so soothing and healing.

Sometimes it takes me a while to put the images together and then journal. But allowing the process to unfold in a natural flow, I think, is all part of the beautiful teachings my dogs taught me – and to be in the present moment.

So I thought I’d share with you my recent connection with Gidget through the I Am One Who prompt and then working with oracle cards to gain some additional insight from her.

I Am One Who…

…sat quietly with you sharing my energy of truth as a way to guide you to yours.

…was content as who I am as a reflection for you to do the same.

…came into your life to hold your wounded heart as you found the courage to witness and accept your worthiness.

…resides within you always as the princess of your heart.

…sees deep into the soul of truth.

…took on your childhood pain, shook it loose for you to see and so you could set yourself free.

…watched your heart expand in compassion for yourself.

…provided unconditional love and support in your deepest, most excruciating moments of grief.

…loved you without judgment through it all.

…loved to entice the little girl within you to come out and play.

…rejoices and dances with you whenever you wish. Just think of me and I’m there.

…will always envelop you with the purest and deepest love as my everlasting gift to you.

…knows you will now carry the light of compassion within you and allow it to guide you through your remaining earthly journey.

I pulled an oracle card from the Wisdom of the Oracle asking Gidget what more she wanted me to know right now?

 

We are always connected. The key to being able to be with me is through quiet time and attention to the love we shared. That love is still here for you.

Our relationship has only changed form. I see you, I feel you, and I hear you. Rest sweetly in what you can’t see and know that it’s what you feel that matters. 

I’ll be your forever friend.

Thank you to Linda Su of ArtLin Creations for the beautiful and sweet gift of the memorial card in honor of Gidget. It’s such a lovely addition to my altar and I love how it looks next to the SoulCollage card of Gidget.

XO,

Barbara

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Oracle Cards as Self-care for My Soul

Posted by Barbara Techel
Oracle Cards as Self Care for My Soul
Cards from Wisdom of the Oracle

If you’d like to listen to this post as an audio, I’m beginning an experiment and recording some of my posts. You can listen here.

Life isn’t fair. It’s all I could think about after adopting a special needs dog, Joie, and her passing away ten months later.

I was numb. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t understand. A writer, author, and blogger for over six years, I suddenly had nothing left to say. I was scared and didn’t know what my future would look like.

The truth was I’d been ignoring that voice within that had been urging me to slow down, take a break, and re-evaluate what it was I wanted next for my life. But I ignored it.

Until now. Here I was in this space with the one thing I needed to do, but pushed away for the past two years because I was afraid to look because of fear—fear of the unknown and fear of judgement.

The best thing I could do, and I now know looking back, was to honor that nudge that had been trying desperately to get my attention. And so I dropped everything in my professional life, and took a two month sabbatical. Even though it felt extremely uncomfortable the first two weeks to do what felt like nothing. 

But with an empty calendar and hours looming before me each day, I made the commitment to journal my thoughts, feelings, challenges, and disappointments in hopes the excavation would reveal my next best step.

It was on the second day of this sacred time that I was guided to pick up a card deck I’d had for quite some time called Grace Cards. While I’d not classify them specifically as an oracle deck, they would introduce me to how there is always a benevolent force of energy guiding us.

Just like many of the dogs in my life have been a reflection for me, guiding me to be my best self, the cards were uncanny in matching my words on the page and what was going on in my inner world as I moved through this time of learning to just be.

It was during this time of transition I’d come to see a deeper meaning to true self-care. While bubble baths, spending time in nature, yoga, and meditation is part of my self-care routine, it was pulling a daily oracle card and journaling with it I was able to move deeper into finding the courage to express what mattered to me.

While I’d write and publish, Wisdom Found in the Pause – Joie’s Gift about this inward journey I took in 2013,  I didn’t put any effort into marketing it like I’d done with my previous books. I’d eventually come to realize it was because of fear of judgement that people would think I was wonky for working with oracle cards as a tool for personal growth, as if it wasn’t valid. I’m grateful I now know better!

And it would be over the next few years, and continuing the journey of going inward, working with an animal communicator, a therapist, a pet counselor, and going through Oracle School, I would come to understand how old stories and past wounds I’d carried with me for far too long caused me to repeat patterns with my inner critic leading the way. The one who wanted me to believe I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, that others would judge me, and that what I said and believed didn’t matter.

Self-care came to be about owning all my feelings and emotions and then working to integrate them into pearls of wisdom. And that the wisdom I’d gained from those past hurts and old stories were part of what was integral in helping shape me into who I am. Without those experiences I wouldn’t be the person I am. So I could either continue to curse them, or I could learn from them, understand how they influenced my life, and then release them.

This is what true self-care means to me now. It’s about the willingness to continue to be with my feelings and emotions, even those times when it’s uncomfortable and I’d rather resist and push them away. While I’m not perfect at this, I continue to be in awareness of the gift of this new perspective and trust that these are signposts are guiding me to more compassion, love, and understanding of self.

The three cards I purposely chose to go along with my thoughts on true self care are from The Wisdom of the Oracle deck. They speak to how different our lives can be if we open to the truth in our hearts, remember that a higher power has our back, and how we are then granted more blessed moments when we live in this way.

XO,

Barb

Oracle Card as Self Care for My Soul

You Can’t Take Flight If You Don’t Let Go – Message from Hummingbird

Posted by Barbara Techel

You Can't Take Flight If You Don't Let Go - Message from Hummingbird

Some of my dreams of late have been filled with a relationship I’d thought I’d completely let go of. Today I woke up frustrated that yet another dream last night had me wrestling with trying to understand what had happened and why couldn’t I just let this go for good.

After my morning meditation, I grabbed my journal and asked what it was I needed to know to completely let go of this person who left from my life quite a few years ago. Pulling an oracle card from the Mystical Shaman Oracle, one of my favorite decks to work with, I received, The Hummingbird.

I felt my frustration melt. Hummingbird so significant for me in the deep knowing I experienced in 2012, two weeks after my dachshund, Frankie passed, and she visited me as a hummingbird, fluttering within inches of my face for several seconds. It still makes my heart expand to this day recalling that beautiful moment.

Before turning to the guide book I journaled that hummingbird was sharing with me that I won’t have peace, joy or freedom if I hold onto resentment in that this relationship had ended in such an abrupt and hurtful-to-me way. I realized that if this person had stayed in my life, it would have been restrictive because I felt that not only did it feel like I gave more than received, but also in that I gave much of my power away, also.

Turning to the booklet what really jumped out at me was the line, “Hummingbird teaches us to be gentle to ourselves and protect personal space.” 

I was reminded that, of course, I have a choice of whether or not I allow that relationship to continue to take up space within my inner world.

Additional insight said, “Bypass the dung pile of old pain and hurts, head for flowers, and learn to trust the calling you hear ever so softly.” 

So true, I thought. It is indeed time for me to take flight away from this old wound. If I stay living in that story, I won’t have the energy to fulfill my new mission as an Oracle Guide.

As I sat in contemplation a bit longer another oracle card which has been showing up often lately for me from the same deck, Wild Woman, showed itself to me quite vividly in my mind. She is the woman I have the choice to claim each and every day.

I choose to live in the here and now, and see that past relationship as a gift, in that if I’d still be there, I’d not have had learned what I needed to in order to evolve into who I now am.

“Still your mind and heed the gentle voice that calls to you to test new wings.” 

So many experiences in our lives are indeed part of helping us test our wings, so that we can continue to gain more confidence with who we already are. I’m thankful for the poignant message, and just what I need to hear today, from Hummingbird.

XO,

Barbara